AI vs Consciousness

One thing that can neither be proven nor disproven is that there exists an external mind-independent world. Why does it appear (according to our best science) that we live in a purely physical world devoid of qualities? Erwin Schrödinger–Mind and Matter

I don’t believe we’ll ever have AI without consciousness. If we are simply opening a new portal to consciousness (like having a baby) it will take a mathematical formula that is self examining.

Voluminous computations will not produce a conscious entity. AI would need consciousness to become intelligent. It is quite likely there is only one consciousness and many apertures, many openings into it—Our brains are receivers. If somehow we created a new form of consciousness it would be immiscible and likely catastrophic to it or us.

Photo. Credit Forbes Magazine

Just as everything is made of one process (the collapsing wave function) of a single, fundamental phenomenon, adding another form could be catastrophic. Since there is no evidence for a multiple consciousness model vs a single source model, I would think science should err on the side of caution —but I doubt they will.

Who could we trust to manage the source code?

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Is Fundamental Reality as We See It?

Do our senses give us truths about the structure of objective reality, whatever that structure may be? Quite frankly no, it doesn’t.

Long ago science set a theory to explain conscious agents and experience, yet have failed to provide one bit of proof that conscious emergence is actually the process. There have been some brilliant people working on it for quite some time, yet not one case or process has been identified as true—that this particular mechanism leads to that. Not very good progress considering how long they’ve been at it.

Using the evolutionary models and calculations, the probability is zero that any of our senses report any truths about the structure of reality—Donald Hoffman

Since space time is doomed as a theory (Nima Armani-Hamed, David Gross, Ed Witten) so are the standard models of conscious emergence as a fundamental property of evolved brains. It is appearing more and more the opposite is true—that brains are the result of consciousness, as well as everything else. And that reality as we see it, isn’t fundamental at all.

So space-time is no longer fundamental but seems to be an emergent property of consciousness. It has been a useful theory and created many beneficial gadgets and technologies, but it will soon be replaced to take us far beyond the present kind.

So what is reality constructed of and what would it look like if we could perceive it with our senses? Please watch this interview With Lex Fridman and Donald Hoffman.

Is Geology Conscious

In the day the earth became dormant. While she sleeps is she not still alive?

Is there life in stone, or is It is unconscious, without life? Walking over the dry landscape, Death Valley appears barren. As a casual passerby one would assume it a wasteland of worthless desert, but in the cooking soil lay dormant the seeds of a life cycle full of pause.

Death Valley

Wait ten years for the fall rains to drench the landscape—and in spring see the super-blooms, where Death Valley becomes a meadow. As humans we depend on a more frequent cycle, so we move on. Nothing lives here. Be a great place for a mining operation if it wasn’t so damned hot!

Walking over a cracked riverbed—four years now and no sign of life, but underfoot in the hard pan sediment thrives the lungfish. Sealed in a self created pod and breathing air, the lungfish of considerable size patiently waits for rain, estivating.

Now we say we’re unconscious in sleep and self-conscious in the wakeful state. Which is the Reality? Are they not both states of living? As a stone lay dormant, is it unconscious, which in its sleep is a form of consciousness?

Reality is continuous and eternal. Neither the unconsciousness nor the self-consciousness of the present is any more real than the other. Unconscious and conscious are both consciousness. Tread lightly, slow down, and listen.

Earth gives off a relentless hum of countless notes completely imperceptible to the human ear, like a giant, exceptionally quiet symphony—Charles Choi, Live Science. Is there consciousness there?

Death Valley

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Life after Death

When I die there will be no experience—no regrets or joyous reunions, for there will be no apparatus to manage or attend such consciousness or effort. Even if “spirit” carried on in some idea or another, it is a mindless, blank stare at a static white board without sensory perception for eternity, as unaware as the universe is of itself. Biology fills the void for a time. Life is a symptom of our universe, but it is not intentional, nor has any ideas at all about how it happens. Funny, just like you and me.

Biology is a byproduct of the universe—a symptom. The cycles are endless. The earth is like a slow motion chia pet. Humans have been on this cosmic stage about 20 minutes. Imagine a time-lapse from beginning to end—it would be no mystery.

Taking a Hindu version at face value, if I am here to grow to perfection through repetition, over and over and to resolve the unsolved desires and issues of karma, why would I have ever been born in the first place, having had no karma to be born with?

I have possibly however, inherited such a thing from evolution, that monkeys rang up my karmic credit after they received it from their progenotes, and so on and so on, all the way back to the spawn of life. If it ever died out, nothing would ever know it ever was a thing at all.

That which truly exists must exist all the time, but the body does not exist all the time. Therefore, it cannot be real.

The ultimate oxymoron is life after death. That would contradict the meaning of both.

The Omega Man

When the signal dies out of the last human being, that narrow band of focus which is conscious attention, what will become of that consciousness? Which thoughts will leave an impact? Which beliefs will transcend annihilation?

For millennia we have followed a certain chain of thoughts, the origination of which is unknown. Certain innovators have some staying power, like Greek philosophers some religions, but when all is said and done will it matter one wit?

Thousands of cultures have been completely erased, each having their own chains of thought. But now we live a sophisticated life, above the ethnosphere of origination. But I think they had something we do not, or we are attempting things that may have already (or nearly) destroyed us more than once.

I wonder if primates would again evolve into humans, or something more? I wonder what we would call ourselves.

“If life on Earth offers any measure of life elsewhere in the universe, then intelligence must be rare. By some estimates, there have been more than ten billion species in the history of life on Earth. It follows that among all extraterrestrial life forms we might expect no better than about one in ten billion to be as intelligent as we are, not to mention the odds against the intelligent life having an advanced technology and a desire to communicate through the vast distances of interstellar space”—Niel DeGrasse Tyson

“The universe appears to be 13.8 billion years old. The earth about 4.5 billion years old. In another half billion years the sun will expand and make life impossible on earth, which means that if had taken consciousness 10% longer to evolve it would have never evolved at all”—Elon Musk

Earth depicted without water

Then there is the timing thing. Our ability to send messages is about a hundred years now—an infinitesimal window of time compared to the age of anything out there.

A Note On Death

For several years I did body removals. Some were quite humorous, while others—not so much. A lot can happen in a week or two, especially in the summer months.

Having no emotional ties to a body made it a $50 job. It never once seemed like a spirit, or “someone” was missing from the body—only with an emotional connection might a loved one or friend hope it that way. Lots and lots of dead people where it actually appears that consciousness did not leave the body, but the body left consciousness. It simply disconnected from the grid.

By the way, the worst smell on earth is the breath of death—the decomposing gasses trapped in the lungs that expel when you first move a dead one.

This is my first hand observations of a single consciousness. Only if you were taught to believe otherwise would it appear any different than that. Consciousness remains in spite of life or death. It is what is.

Three Cases For a Single Consciousness

The brain as an appendix? Three pounds of useless fat…

Organisms come and go. Brains evolve into minor insignificant blobs—to bilateral synchronization, to the organic state of awareness. Being aware of being aware (the pinnacle of biological evolution) big brains have made humans the “chief mambas” of planet earth. But was this necessary? Is it even true?

In geologic timescale life is but an eye-blink. Upon death one constant remains—consciousness. It is in every thing. It is the background illuminating the foreground. “The entire universe is forever the same as the consciousness that dwells in every atom”—Yoga-Vasistha. When you are gone consciousness remains.

Does consciousness exists without the brain? In recent years that idea has regained traction from some unlikely sources—brain abnormalities and science.

#1. “A new research study contradicts the established view that so-called split-brain patients have a split consciousness. Instead, the researchers behind the study have found strong evidence showing that despite being characterized by little to no communication between the right and left brain hemispheres, split brain does not cause two independent conscious perceivers in one brain”

Split brain is a lay term to describe the result of a corpus callosotomy, a surgical procedure first performed in the 1940s to alleviate severe epilepsy among patients. During this procedure, the corpus callosum (a bundle of neural fibres connecting the left and right cerebral hemispheres) is severed to prevent the spread of epileptic activity between the two brain halves. While mostly successful in relieving epilepsy, the procedure also virtually eliminates all communication between the cerebral hemispheres, thereby resulting in a ‘split brain’. Ref Article

Yet the patients still have one mind. The idea that consciousness originates in the brain has been sideswiped by evidence—that it’s not so clear as that. There’s more…

#2. More than 20 years ago the campus doctor at Sheffield University was treating a student of mathematics for a minor ailment. The student was bright, having an IQ of 126. The doctor noticed that the student’s head seemed a little larger than normal and he referred him to Dr Lorber for further examination.

Dr Lorber examined the boy’s head by cat scan to discover that the student had virtually no brain. The normal brain consists of two hemispheres that fill the cranial cavity, some 4.5cm deep. This student had a layer of cerebral tissue less than 1mm deep covering the top of his spinal column. Ref Article

#3. When a 44-year-old man from France started experiencing weakness in his leg, he went to the hospital. That’s when doctors told him he was missing most of his brain. The man’s skull was full of liquid, with just a thin layer of brain tissue left. Ref Article

With speech and motor coordination intact, normal societal living, average as well as above average intelligence, the above cases are good cases for consciousness existing outside the brain. Even the split brain is a single consciousness.

Where are his memories stored?

Where does thinking occur?

Where is speech and visual acuity learned and stored?

Where is the moral compass and reasoning developed?

Where does this place evolutions larger brain hypothesis to support greater intelligence?

How do the 12 cranial nerves function without a source organ?

I imagine the big brain has something to do with esthetics. A population of pinheads wouldn’t be a real eye catcher— or would it?

Are You You, Or Are You It?

For what it’s worth—the idea that everything and everyone are separate bits and entities is an unscientific, social construct.

Everything you see is seen on the inside of your brain, while at the same time, that brain is on the inside of everything you see. Everyone else is also inside what they are seeing too (insert puddle analogy here) I know this seems rather obvious when you spell it out, so why does one feel we are individual agents of it? Why think of consciousness as an emergent property that arises from the brain—tradition, hypothesis, original sin? Why? Here’s an idea—

“The brain does not create or produce consciousness; rather, it filters it”—Peter Fenwick.

“My brain is only a receiver”—Nikola Tesla

Your brain is primarily a receiver too. Sure it has some memory and some habitual functions to conserve energy, but since birth it has received input—countless lines of opinion, indoctrination, definitions, and visual stimuli form a particular viewpoint and, occasionally can regurgitate a few lines of coherent feedback out of the mix, or pull an idea out of thin air (inspiration). How could an emergent property like a brain, developed by outside stimuli, suddenly become independent of it—unless that’s how you were taught to see it? There is no outside stimuli. You’re going through it and it’s going through you. That’s why your body is covered in little tubes. In and out, that’s what it does.

So you are inside of what you are looking at, and inside your brain we are seeing what we’re inside of. It is not outside you—it is you. The whole universe is you. It is all one thing. It’s all one process.

Our current thinking is a neat trick based mostly on a Hebrew interpretation from an authoritative culture where you are the created subject of a king—independent agents of freewill guilty of original sin, that you and your actions are somehow separate from the environment. This illusion permeates deep in our culture. You are responsible to “work out your salvation with fear and trembling”. You are on your own—but, “Any immutable attribute of oneself, cannot be a sin”. (1)

Maybe your brain being a receiver of consciousness is why it is so difficult to change your personality. It is 3 pounds of fat, receiving impulses and scanning for danger. How do you make it stop is the question? There are ways.

We are apertures of the entire cosmos, independent only as semi-unique physical structures—outposts in a self regulating organism where there is no freewill. Everything is a reaction to the flow of stimuli—even a well thought-out decision. Enjoy the ride!

Consciousness is Geologic, but Geology is unconscious

Can we truly explain consciousness out of geology, yet deny that same geology is at least part conscious? How could that be? There is a myriad of explanations and footnotes to inculcate a believable mythology* emergent property, yet, the simplest answer may be the correct one. Maybe we should start there?

If we can use this to explain that, we can just as easily describe that with this. That we can identify this mind with those elements, yet deny those elements have part of mind? Reason tells me that one cannot exist without the other. It’s tricky—so observation and testing takes a cold, hard leap-of-faith which has developed into a popular new mythology, but is a very ancient teaching.

The modern world is an extension of human consciousness, and human consciousness is an emergent property of minerals, crystals, and primordial soup lipids composed mainly of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen.

“However, “Emergent properties” is a scientific term, eerily similar to Pratītyasamutpāda in Sanskrit, commonly translated as dependent origination, dependent arising, or interdependence, a key doctrine of Buddhist philosophy, which states that all dharmas (phenomena) arise dependent upon other phenomena; “if this exists, that exists; if this ceases to exist, that also ceases to exist”. This is a sound principle. There is no such thing as a one way transaction. It contradicts what transaction implies.

Of course there are two sides of this debate. One is careful to re-coin terms to sophisticate an entirely scientific approach, while the original is a philosophy older than the dirt itself. Science has reinvented the wheel (or borrowed the wheel) from a religion. It is a re-emergent property already known for thousands of years through reason and deduction—and is the least complex answer. Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. How this all happens will forever be missed as hypothesis continues solidifies into mythology. It is now the common sense of the modern world, yet takes some real mental wrangling to master.

Discarding what is useful with what is not—Shamelessly wasting water.

*Mythology: (from the Greek mythos for story-of-the-people, and logos for word or speech, so the spoken story of a people) “is the study and interpretation of tales or fables of a culture known as myths or the collection of such stories which deal with various aspects of the human condition”. The current hypothesis of emergent properties has become the accepted mythology of modern society—again. It is the current story of our people.

Science and Religion—Maybe Mix in a Little?

Has any religious doctrine ever supplanted a scientific discovery? I used to answer that question with an emphatic no, but I may have been wrong about that. It is highly likely that Newtonian physics was supplanted by the Upanishads—the ideas from Hindu philosophy called quantum mechanics.

What’s different about the Upanishad -vs- say, Christianity, is the Upanishad can be made into math by the most skilled of all scientific minds. It can be tested, and it can be fit into what we know about the nature of duality, consciousness, mind, and matter.

Is it mere coincidence that physics can be so mystical in similarity, that uncertainty is certain, and that through observation we find that waves become particles (matter) and that the “real world” is illusory (not what it appears to be) upon our observation of them?

“The Upanishads describe how reality arises out of consciousness. But consciousness cannot be found inside our bodies as a substance or an organ.” That trying to see the Self (Brahman) with the same electrons and photons as It, the projector only records interference because me are mixing waves of the same substance. What is sought is the seeker—the seeker is the sought.

“Since we haven’t been able to locate or explain this interaction, we’re left with a deceptively simple choice: either consciousness or reality doesn’t exist”—Erwin Schrödinger

But I despise the two choice debate. And as we see psychologically, consciously, physiologically, and every where in between, that consciousness is reality. There is no such thing as experiencing a non-experience. It’s all one thing. Everything is waves—some long and some short. Some last a lifetime while others millennia, but nothing is permanent —so no thing is real but one thing.

Realizing this has boosted physics out of the arena and into space.

On the other hand, the Upanishads uphold an idealist view – that consciousness exists by itself, and that the physical world depends on it. There is no objective reality that exists independently of the observer. Schrödinger supported this view and lamented the aversion for it: “it must be said that to Western thought this doctrine has little appeal, it is unpalatable, it is dubbed fantastic, unscientific. Well, so it is because our science – Greek science – is based on objectivation, whereby it has cut itself off from an adequate understanding of the subject of cognisance, of the mind”

Curious to know what other physicists of the era were influenced by the upanishads?

Werner Heisenberg, Carl Sagan, Robert Oppenheimer, Erwin Schrödinger, Niels Bohr, Nikola Tesla…

The golden age of physics and invention had a common thread that is wont to ignore (customary). The Upanishads and Indian philosophies date back about 5000, years. Their rebirth was witnessed at the turn of the 20th century.

“I do believe that this is precisely the point where our present way of thinking does need to be amended, perhaps by a bit of blood-transfusion from Eastern thought”—Erwin Schrödinger

Beginning the Finishing

Limits of Language—Other Ways of Being

Does the forest have trees, or is the forest trees? Are those trees made of wood, or are they wood? No–thing is made of any thing, but of itself is so…The trees are treeing. It is a symptom of the cosmos.

I AM THAT, I am. More appropriately, I am this, not that. This, the subject, that, the object, and objects are simply forms which quintessentially are made of atoms which are made of no-thing. We may as well be analyzing the images on a movie screen—the massless photon, waves or particles, images?—imagines. Everything is happening in the mind.

In the language of Nootka Indians, there are no nouns and are only verbs—simply doings, for the doer and the doing are one and the same. An interesting way to see the world, and maybe more realistic than the dual nature of western thought. There is no one to blame for anything, for it is all your doing—take responsibility for it!

In Indian philosophy, nama-rupa, or named form, gets special distinction as the ultimate reality which is non-dualistic in nature. But it’s not really nature either, but mind. All of it is a projection from the apertures of the organism as in a dream of dreams—so real because it is in fact, all that we know.

In Wei Wu Wei, we are the mind using the mind to seek the ontological truth, but the seeker and the sought is one in the same and can never be found—what is sought is the seeker. That is the secret. So, our biggest hinderance to seeing this begins with language—that things have a subject and a predicate, but everything is a really a gerund. I’m not a jim, but I am jimming. I am a verb-ing. This certainly rings a bell. No wonder nobody can see it—like a fish searching for water in the ocean—it is nowhere to be found.

One thing that sets Christianity and Islam apart from other religions; is theirs must be the ultimate truth, it’s that important—yet it’s all they know. There are better ways of realization without the depreciation—sinners! Yes god has been revealed to others places and times, but…

Fascinating to me how others see the world, without the guilt of being born of no freewill from sin. Who’s right? There is only one contradictory free truth, so how hard can it be?

Project Reality

Which mythology is the true religion? This is interesting

He said “the world is a projection of the one who sees it, in exactly the same way that a dream is a projection of the dreamer—that in fact everything you see is your own projection from your mind. When that projecting system vanishes, then you no longer see things as inside or outside, you simply recognize it as being your own self”.

“But until that moment (awakening), everything you see is a an internal projection, in much the same way that a movie is projected on to a screen, but it’s all going on inside your own head”—David Godman, excerpt on Sri Ramana Maharshi

What we see as reality is a projection from the mind (the receiver) onto the background (which is consciousness) that permeates everything. Like watching a movie in the theater, you can never see the screen behind the images. That screen is consciousness that pervades the entire cosmos.

Our minds are filled with cultural distractions based on incorrect myth—that you are separate ego. “I”, is then fed by grasping at objects focusing thought projected outside of the Self.

When you pursue the identification of “I” by focusing deeply on who is the the thinker of those thoughts, it leaves, vanishes, goes back to the source—that is the moment of awakening, and seeing the true reality that is not objects at all, but the Self, which is one. That is god in this philosophy, and it is you, and it is everything—and good and evil are all inflicted on itself.

Nothing can be seen without a background—and consciousness is all that. There is only one philosophical question worth pursuing; Is any of it serious? When all is said and pondered into paralysis and analyzed ad nauseum, what is it that remains besides I am?

We are connected to the world by little tubes and nerve endings on our skin. The whole cosmos perpetually passes through us, and us through it.

My first try at painting

Myth in Todays Common Senses

“There are two great myths of the universe that lie in the psychological and intellectual backgrounds of all of us”. It is the most common, common-sense of today, but they are simply myths.

One; that the universe was made and has a governor. “That we exist only in sufferance as subjects of god, visitors here on probation where we are artifacts made, that do not exist in our own right. God alone exists in his own right, and you exist as a favor”—and you’d better be grateful!

“That you are a subject of the royal Monarch, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, an idea inherited from the political structures of the Tigress and Euphrates culture, and from Egypt”. That god is the big boss, who’s authority trickles down to the obedient governed.

The other myth that was popularized in the 19th century—that the universe is a fully automatic, random fluke. That after billions of years consciousness sprang from a special mixture of minerals, with just the right amount of seasoning, hot gas and voilet! You—are simply a result.

But suppose there is a third option—that there is no governor, nor that the world is an accident that spawned nature, “but that the universe is a self-governing organism that peoples from time to time”, the same way in which an apple tree apples, or a forest grows trees—that life is a symptom of the universe, the same way in which a flower breaks-forth without knowing how or why.

Either the earth is a mechanism of laws, which would either be governed by god, or be a mere spontaneous, automatic fluke with no purpose—or it is an organism—“and organisms are self-governing like your body—and life is a symptom of a universe”.

Not merely a guess as to how consciousness arises through the chain of elements, nor placating the senses by thinking a god who cares, the world as it is seen without contradiction, and the universe is without question, bearing fruit.

Areas in “quotation” compliments of Alan Watts, The nature of consciousness.

Pacific Crest Trail

Freedom or Choice—Can we have Both?

Can humans think instinctively? Freedom of choice is precisely the state of not choosing. What is freedom of choice, when choice is the analyzing act of hesitation while making a decision and ignoring the instinctive action that has the backing of evolution?

While being a decisive person is considered someone who doesn’t stop to decide, a paradox in the definition itself which pauses me to examine. Why do humans approach everything backwards, abandoning instinct when they seem to know better? Thinking and words may have us spellbound.

Your mind, brain, and consciousness (whatever you want to call it) arises or evolves of the very stuff your thoughts are trying to analyze. No wonder it is such an impossible puzzle. And to examine what we consider the world outside ourselves becomes equally as frustrating, because it isn’t outside yourself either, although you’re inside it. Until one can release the duplicity of examining the world as separate and hostile, it will be utterly and increasingly futile to segment the universe, matter, and consciousness into words and formulas. Is there a more wholistic approach?

Snoqualmie Tunnel Hike today–2.3 miles each way, of course

To treat our brain differently from any other organ that functions automatically without thinking, so too, the subconscious mind functions in an amazing way, unless you try to put effort to it—that thinking, the very specific and narrow channel of conscious attention with which we identify ourselves is the most unreliable means of examining anything, because what is, is being analyzed by the most unreliable portion of the human computer.

The scientific and religious approach, from the very beginning assumes we are separate from what we know to be true—that we are stardust, and to examine what you’re made of using what you’re made of, is a daunting task that should cause a laugh with absurdity, but instead causes contention because we fail to scratch beyond the conscious attention. It has to be examined by what we’re not made of—what is not obvious on the surface.

Thinking and what “should be” is a projection of the mind that creates an illusion of separation. Thought takes time; thought is psychological time that distorts the timeless.

“But were human”, you say, “we have to live in the world we have, with the tools we have”, you say, but the very art of approach from our infancy is at odds with logic and reason, combatting instinct and the underlying reality we have been trained to ignore in modern life. Laden with changing fact and pointless claims of progress, infighting, outfighting, constantly choosing from two wrong sides of beliefs that have us exactly and forever where we don’t want to be.

But human behavior without the thinking is most often heroic, while at the same time the hero says (s)he just did what anyone would do—yes, if they didn’t stop to think about it first.

And after analyzing all the data, the best inventions come by luck, not the scientific method at all. It is used much less frequently than it is lauded, and often used in backsplaining the discovery that was made by instinctive awareness–or luck.

Diversity and Planetary Health

“Other cultures are not failed attempts at being you; they are unique manifestations of the human spirit.” –Wade Davis

Ethnosphere, as defined by Mr. Davis is “the sum total of all thoughts and intuitions, myths and beliefs, ideas and inspirations brought into being by the human imagination since the dawn of consciousness”—the ethnosphere is humanity’s greatest legacy. It is truly amazing, the varieties of life, thoughts, and perceptions that have developed in the various habitats throughout the world.

Every ecosystem depends on vast diversity for its health. Since there are no “separate events” in the world—its all one big happening, ultimately every thing is dependent on every other thing to maintain equilibrium. Is the variety of perceptions and thought, born in the array of surroundings through the utilities of life, any different? Is not consciousness, as natural a resource as any other form?

Enter religion

There is one way of being human that holds itself in the highest of regard. It dismisses naturally grown cultures and interpretations of the world as inferior ways of being. It has done more to destroy the ethnosphere through its total ignorance to the value of variety, and if they have their way and bring everyone to Jesus or Allah, the earth is doomed. The ethnosphere is every bit as important as any natural habitat. When one idea or specie artificially inflates its numbers, it detriments not only its own health, but the well-being of the entire system.

Would it be moral in any way, to visit an indigenous culture for the sole purpose of getting them to think like you (under the ignorant guise of love and concern, no less?) To abandon thousands of years of diverse existence to live the monochrome life, where everyone thinks the same and lives by the same rules, now has nearly the entire planet living in a state of constant anxiety. How superior is that?

Hard vs Soft Atheism

What I am seems so fleeting and intangible, but what I was—is fixed and final.

I am more closely identified with what no longer exists, than with what actually is. This overwhelming feeling that I am not a body, but have a body, is a curious look in the mirror. So who am I—and who are you? Just a skin encapsulated accident of evolution, or is there more to it?

When I became a non-believer, I was certain there was nothing beyond this physical experience—nothing but neurons, senses, hormones, and misinterpreted persuasions and perceptions. What it really was though, was a clean slate to view the world without the bias of belief. I really don’t care which way it is, so I ponder existence, consciousness, and try to find my own answers.

Now I am at a crossroad with nowhere to go, yet I press on daily collecting thoughts on a path of least contradiction. That the physical world too, cannot be explained without using the same abstractions of speech and metaphors, really leads me to wonder if there is any difference in stuff at all. And no one has yet put their finger on what the physical world actually is, generally meeting the requirements of spirit.

In the west we have a limited way with words that do not adequately describe the philosophies of half the world. Bonded by the Hebrew way of a monarchial boss, it is an imagery we can’t escape even when we know it’s crap.

The idea of the absolute god with all authority is a major, cultural catastrophe that set a course of dismissing other lines of thought, rebuttals ready before the sentence is even finished. But there are better ways of being, and we find when we look elsewhere it’s not even special—it never was. Just the only table setting.

One issue I have with hard atheism is it’s own automatic rebuttal feature. Sure, it’s easy to dismiss Christianity, but does that mean there is nothing at all?

With all the hairsplitting of physical and metaphysical jargon, it appears everything is god. We are all tits on the same sow—Alan Watts, and god doesn’t know it’s god anymore than you can identify your own source of thought. You’re it

Spirit or Matter

Why does examining the physical world still explain nothing about what it is? What is the most likely reason we haven’t identified one single solitary fact of what matter actually consists? Maybe it isn’t “real”? The simplest answer is usually the correct answer? Or Occam may say—”entities should not be multiplied needlessly” But physics is at a loss, as examining the atom we find 99.99999% empty space—We are empty space.

The physical world is the most elusive, evasive topic of all topics, yet at first glance it seems so obvious (here I am) But you can’t identify what stuff is, any more than you can find anything actually existing anywhere at all. You cannot put your finger on it, nor determine the basic physical makeup—of anything, simultaneously fulfilling all the requirements of spirit. Neither science nor religion has any idea what the hell is going on (forget resurrection of matterless matter for the moment)

Matter is all at once here, there, and nowhere. While it’s properties can be manipulated slightly for our imagined benefit, as far as being the real stuff we have hoped to identify as the physical reality, is likened most easily to an image at the end a projector—though you might just as easily identify the physical properties of an image on a movie screen—where there would be nothing seen at all without the background.

The farther we peek into the physical world the less is discovered—there is nothing there. It is empty shells everywhere we look, and the most obvious yet unsettling reality stares us in the face—there is nothing physical to discover. Is life and the physical world (as we assume) merely concentrated patterns of energy—like a dust devil in passing wind, we see its stationary effects but the wind keeps blowing? Whirlpools along a passing stream? Cyclones of organized chaos? Or is matter any more than a concentration of spirit, for lack of a better term? It, the obvious answer is, essentially energy forming a pattern. The other “one thing” we harness but do not understand in the slightest—electricity.

What should be the most obvious and easy to identify—the physical world, turns out to be the most elusive of all examination. We aren’t really even here in the sense of reality we have imagined. And imagine is what we do best, and will continue to do—our existence depends on it. Whatever the case, life is simply amazing to be a part of. It’s amazing!

What Really Was The Good News?

The awareness of full consciousness—that same ethereal beginning that has been the primer for many religions, cultures, counter cultures, shaman, and silent men and women since time immemorial, has dominated the landscape of thought since man could put into words.

Since the religion is now and forever about following Jesus instead of his message, shows his followers did not understand “the good news” any more than the modern day followers of Jesus. Then, shortly after his death, the intellectual transfer to the stupor of faith, counterfeited the mystery to carefully guard the irrelevance of the church. Now “ever learning but never coming to a knowledge of the truth“. Welcome to belief in faith.

The early church opted for idol worship and sequestered Jesus—the only true son of god, which stopped the real gospel in its tracks. We certainly can’t have anyone else running around like gods, can we? So for now we simply have been persuaded we can never measure up, relegating ourselves to hoping for grace—which was never the point. But alas, now you can never compare yourself to Jesus no matter what the effort—or be the heretic, for only He and god are one, but that too, was never the point.

When Christianity institutionalized Jesus as the one, it essentially ensured castration—the gospel will never usher in the kingdom of god on earth—so we have look elsewhere.

So what secret was he trying to reveal? It had to be subtle, for like so many others that claimed I AM were put to death by revealing what we really are—showing how ignorance can easily blaspheme the truth.

 John 10:34—”Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?

35 If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken;

36 Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the a Son of God?” (In the Greek he is a son of God, not the son of god. Italics in the KJV delineates translator interpolation, not emphasis—and in this case incorrectly. A son of god means our immortal existence is a coexistence of equals, not a monarchy. We are all of the same status, and deep down I think most of us (you) know this.

The term “son of god” in the original context implies “equal in nature and authority to god”.

Psalm 82:6 I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.

The ultimate reality—that all of us are each the cosmic whole. The great mystics have all seen this. This is the central mystery Jesus wanted us to see.

Although writers are constrained by the language and religious bias of their culture (using familiar terms like father, and He) Jesus was one who knew the game and that universal and everlasting life is wonderfully crafted and masterfully—us

This ideal state of intellectual and ethereal perfection can be achieved by mankind through purely human means that takes no belief to achieve—for it is a method that can be taught. But who will listen? Certainly not me, the sinner. I could never be like god, so follow the leader we must?

But the things he did we were also to do—“even greater things than these“, but we’ll never do it when we substitute our true nature for faith and idol worship.

So here we are. Here I AM, as those who know have known for a long time. There is no monarchial boss or patriarchal authority. It is an endless happening. Life is what we do. It is what we are.

The good news is not simply that Jesus was a son of god, but to open everyone’s eyes that they are too. Equal measures of the whole thing. I and the ethereal are one. It doesn’t help that the word ‘God’ has been hijacked to mean what it means. If we’re going to participate as who we actually are, a new word would help.

If I were to believe in god, I never will see it nor be it.

The Christian definitions of god and father hierarchy are at odds with the experience. If you were to get a peek behind the curtain and see that it is you—you are the whole thing, you would look at people differently, knowing full well that they are too, but they haven’t learned how to grasp it? Wouldn’t that make you smile, knowing how simply and effectively we have fooled ourselves for the moment? That there is no hierarchy or intimate bosses taking notes on your behavior?

But really, this is all a necessary component of the physical experience. If everybody recognized this we’d have the kingdom of god on earth. That would be silly to have it “be done on earth as it is in heaven”. So we stick with faith and worship the messenger instead of experience the whole of the message. It can’t possibly be our doing, can it? That would mean personal responsibility. We’d rather follow the gurus which is obvious because that’s what humans do—look outside themselves for validation.

Who is in Charge of Fine-Tuning?

The human body contains about 6.5 trillion viruses. They serve us without notice until a new virus enters the system—sometimes benign, sometimes a threat, but it makes one wonder—who is in charge here?

A recent study found that between 40 and 80 percent of the human genome arrived from some archaic viral invasion.

“That’s because viruses aren’t just critters that try to make a home in a body, the way bacteria do. Instead, a virus is a genetic parasite. It injects its genetic code into its host’s cells and hijacks them, turning them to its own purposes — typically, that means as factories for making more viruses. This process is usually either useless or harmful to the host, but every once in a while, the injected viral genes are benign or even useful enough to hang around”—Live Science

According to two papers published in the journal Cell in January, “long ago, a virus bound its genetic code to the genome of four-limbed animals. That snippet of code is still very much alive in humans’ brains today, where it does the very vital task of packaging up genetic information and sending it from nerve cells to their neighbors in little capsules that look a whole lot like viruses themselves. And these little packages of information might be critical elements of how nerves communicate and reorganize over time—tasks thought to be necessary for higher-order thinking”.

I understand god works in mysterious ways, but you may no longer be the child of god you think you are. Could god possibly orchestrate his greatest potentiates in such a manner? Or maybe that fuzzy confirmation that god is real, is just one virus to another.

More Than Atheism

Is atheism the last station on the track? Of course, upon clearing your head from Abrahamic ownership of the cosmos, it may seem that-day to be a great awakening moment—there is much more to the story than that restricted system allows.

True, there are no gods, but is there nothing else at all? In the tradition of enlightenment we see the value of unbelief, then little by little the source reveals itself from within, that the universe is a complex living way, a happening where we live without belief, but in practice as a singularity.

As anthropology and archaeology sever the 6000 year shoehorning of human history, we find this happening has been going on much longer in a highly developed fashion of ebbs and flows, than the Yahweh story will allow.

Abrahamic religion can no longer hold back the tides of knowledge. Information and collaboration is happening around the world, fostering new discovery of what we can be, who mankind actually is, and ushering in a new, beautiful awakening of the human spirit. Once held divided for centuries by the insistence of one god, that ultimate idol which has distracted us from our true greatness through submission, to the prepackaged, poorly interpreted cultural bias of the awakening experience.

Atheism is simply unbelief in gods, but that may not be the whole story—It is what indigenous and others skilled in the meditative arts have known for a long time, but who in this system has time for that? Carefully guided through life settling for half truth and contradiction, it’s no wonder we’ve gone nowhere.

The How of Atheism?

How is that atheism mitigates fear better than the purveyors of hope? How is it that through a belief that is intended to pacify fear has you looking over your shoulder and hoping for the future that never comes. All we can reasonably experience is right now. Religion does not comfort fear but exploits it. After examining your life with god, it’s no wonder there is no peace.

Atheism is systemic of trusting your own judgement—looking at evidence vs bandwagoning on the coattails of hormones and hope. Not believing is no license to evil, but a permit to think and act in the best interest of the moment.

Atheism stems from understanding that humans are easily deceived by promises and easily racked by accusations of guilt and future punishment. Atheism is innocence until proven guilty, not convicted at birth for merely being born.

Atheism accepts reasoning with confidence—the ability to win an argument with oneself and prevail over insecurity.

Atheism does not subscribe to original sin and self deprecation. Personal peace is achieved by self worth, not the merry go round of confessionals. People are actually born awesome—humanity is better-off without dragging the ball and chain of past guilt and future consequences.

Atheism accepts things without the audacity to challenge nature and its cycles. Your mind and consciousness is all you possess. Death of the body is inevitable. Now is the only experience. What things can you do where you live in the moment, and not thinking past or future? Don’t waste it living life in fear on the terms of the churches.

Atheism is a way of accepting responsibility for the good and the bad as a product of human nature and complicated wiring.

Atheism does not deflect personal responsibility by gifting third party recompense without the consent of the offended—taking full responsibility for our actions is a byproduct of unbelief.

Atheism is evidence of things seen, the continued discovery that we can eventually know all things, and the dismissal of cleverly worded dogmas that are wrought with layered and meaningless contradiction. Absence of evidence is evidence of absence. No truth needs an addendum.

Atheism fails to live in fear of the unanswered questions, examining evidence and adjusts its ideas to further discovery.

Atheism embraces unique perceptions, talents, and varieties that individuals can use to chart their own path using their own intuitions.

Atheism is a personal conviction of integrity. Unbelief restores what was taken by the churches, always focused on solving the inevitable causes of nature by inciting impending doom. “Oh death where is thy sting”? How about the constant reminders and threats posed by religion because you are a fallen, totally dependent, group deprecated creature that deserves endless punishment?

The Compromise—Panpsychism /panˈsīˌkizəm/

Life—amalgamating with matter which “was without form and void“—Genesis 1:2. Void of what? Simply without form and without the void. Containing no defined area imbued by life to perpetuate, but animation itself (energy) creates a void between the nucleus and the shell when it permeates matter, enlarging it by millions with a seemingly empty space—expansion, and all kinetic energy wrapped up in galactic collision.

When life happened upon this pale blue dot, or collided with this insignificant speck in a deluge of massive energy, the globe that we know today was without space for life. Without the consciousness of energy, it sat billions of years since last contact—about the size of a basketball in truly space-less matter—containing no life, but by perfect cataclysm aligned with a star. With energy, wave functions, invisible quantum fields, quarks and gluons, fantastically create, then occupy what we perceive as space, expanding them a million times their inert, lifeless size.

Dinosaurs, once tiny specimens of slightly larger flecks of dust before the earth enlarged its area thorough never-ending chains of cosmic collisions, emerged again in their re-birth as expanded fossil-forms to thousands of times their prior size as the power came on for this generation of conscious energy, expanding to life in the void, for life makes space—and a lot of it (by comparison sake) creating a void between the nucleus and shell, massless electrons fill the space by being everywhere simultaneously as pure energy. Prior to this moment, all the fossil fuels on earth would contain in a thimble.

By removing the empty space, the atoms that make a complete human are the size of a small, minute dust particle, with all of current humanity fitting into an area of a common sugar cube.

The rapid expansion and evolution of species when life infiltrates non-life, gradually stabilizes. Environments peak and yaw, decline and drive evolution and migration. During times of calm these changes are slow and hard to see, but what might happen in a lifetime years ago, now takes millennia.

Earlier, un-eradicated men knew of these energies that infiltrate organic and inorganic life, including the rivers and mountains, considered themselves part of the system we have been forged to forget. By being “civilized” we have lost intuition with the connective forces that sustain us.

Is it a coincidence that the sun encompasses 99.86% of all the visible matter in the solar system, while we (and the other planets) get a trickle that amounts to the matter we possess? That the tiny ray that dissipates this direction contains and maintains the energy that is life and sustains it, earth, and that our very bodies thrive because of shared elements of the stars? We capture a mere fraction (1/billionth) of her emissions.

The atoms that make us, from the calcium in our bones to the iron in our blood, brewed in the heart of an exploding star billions of years ago, and now nurtured by her distant cousin with a mere trickle of energy. Just enough to be, and to simultaneously maintain.

The Conibo people of the Peruvian Amazon, when asked how they knew which varieties of plants to use for what purposes, answered simply, “the plants speak to us“. This exchange of informations takes place at a primitive level. Attuned simply to the frequencies and vibrations of the earth and its secrets—secrets that are now considered quackery, sorcery, witchcraft, and second class to modern medicine, shamanism.

These deeply connected people knew “to be“, was to be in touch with their natural environment, sharing electrons and transferring data with every thing that came in their path. The secrets of life are found in our bare skin and the souls of our tightly bound feet. But we now live in a world of barriers.

pan·psy·chism

/panˈsīˌkizəm = pan/all, psychism/consciousness—all is conscious

1. the doctrine of evidence that everything material, however small, has an element of individual consciousness.

We are vastly made of empty space (filled with energy) 99.999% of the human body is a relative illusion of shared energy—same as the rocks, the rivers, and the trees. All as alive in their own element as the next. Finding your roots in the asphalt, concrete, and barriers to nature is a modern challenge—finding those roots is to find the meaning.

It may not be very sophisticated in this day and age to reverence the sun or the earth—but try life without them. Panpsychism is 99.999% more likely to be accurate, than to postulate a god we have no evidence of.

While apologists continue the debate over the word “was” in Genesis 1:2, again we see that science and the shaman produce the answers to their void, which is truly empty of reason or evidence.

“Was” in the Hebrew is a great attempt at hairsplitting scripture to try and align with scientific evidence that the earth is very old.

HERE is an example of the past 3000 years (really) of trying to determine what “was”, was.

Was There Ever Nothing?

Assuming for the moment that there was never nothing as the simplest and obvious contemplation of existence. If there was ever nothing (creatio ex nihilo) there was also no god to form the universe due to this non-existence of any thing. The writers formed the the verse out of thin air. Contemplating the implementation of subservience from origins to birth to death—through our own faith.

If there never was nothing, have I always been something? If the universe is indeed a brute fact, always in existence in some form or another, so too, have I always been, in some form or another—and always will be, in some form or another.

Will my consciousness remain part of my identity, attached to my own sentience, if it ever was to begin—or end with? I think so.

Nice little find from our hike on the mountain today.

Dissuading Consciousness

Faith has no bearing on if we endure as a species, but it does have an impact on if we don’t. Belief is an arrogant default, distorted, misdirected void of reality, deceptive and skewed observations in favor of overreaching abundance and waste—this latest brand of hominids imagine great and unprovable things.

Somewhere in our past a neuron misaligned or is being used in an untoward affect—a synesthesia or other genetic misfortune hooked to ego and fear, then egotistic salvation and false-worth bred complacency—no one is coming to rescue us.

Unless a change is made the earth will one day be void of the chatter of men, void of human beauty and love—millennia’s of blank pages to be rediscovered in our fossil record by the next batch to rise aboriginal in the resilient and resurgent pools of DNA—life.

Consciousness transudes (1) from the living earth and directs DNA to build hospitable, organic environments driven by various levels of its potential—each one mapping out a resemblance to its capacity. Once an entity is no longer hospitable, the consciousness must leave the organism and death of that body occurs (this is easily observed). Equilibrium and the collage of consciousness recycles itself again and again, often shelved for myriads of time, dissipated into the atmosphere and elements—stored until conditions for organic life are met. Genetic epidemics like autism, cancer, and diabetes bear this out when skewed conscious determination maps a new life into forming with polluted potential.

Now the earth is overflowing with inhabitants struggling over a fixed amount of consciousness, with the dominant energies depleting the earth of its nature—not in its danger, but inflicting ourselves within this delicate, yet massive earth that will once again absorb its most acumen (2) nature shortly after our own bodies are no longer a suitable host to carry its potential—as we change our environment to become inhospitable to life, it will take millions of years to restore the balance for the rise of the next species.

While searching for the meaning of life outside of ourselves has been futile for thousands of years (and worth abandoning) through every rise and fall of hominids, one thing observable is true—the physical earth perpetuates and nurtures lifecycles—but only within a specific balance. We are sickly and getting worse. Is that any wonder?

Phylogeny tells us many lines have existed before. Human-like remains from the late Miocene period and the Pliocene era (7.5 and 5.3 million years ago) are not likely our ancestors, but different lines of hominid civilizations that appeared and disappeared, materializing at different places and times all over the globe—then gone. We too will be fossilized then followed by a resurgent, autonomic force that eminates from this unique speck in the galaxy. With some care we can make this ride last as long as we want—or not. Sapiens 2.0 may get the opportunity sooner than later.

(1) Transudes—to pass through a membrane or permeable substance 

(2) Acumen—ability to reason, keenness, depth of perception, discernment, or discrimination especially in practical matters.

Where Thoughts Come From

It takes a long time to sound like yourself—Miles Davis (then it may take a year or two to get used to it)—Jimoeba

I have to wonder if any of my own ideas are mine, minds, or an amalgam of the matrix. Here’s where the dividing line emerges between acceptance or rejection of a thought—heavily influenced by religious and politicus “men of words” and passionate believers in belief. How do we break from traditions of old to think for ourselves? By unbelief…

Is an idea mine, or submitting to authority of a majority influence? Was the idea put there by an unknown source, or a known source? As Dan Dennett might say, who has hijacked your mind? Who have you allowed to influence you? Either by passive learning, genuine curiosity, or indoctrination, we acquire information, often through chasing rabbits, but the thoughts we nurture or entertain—initiated often by suggestion from an unknown, is our choice. Where we go from there is up to us.

Trying to go somewhere while focusing on the past, hoping the future ends, leaves religion in a muddle of mediocre progress. It hasn’t gone anywhere, produced any results, or fulfilled its promised bliss—ever. We’re still waiting…

Scientific studies of natural history and origins is used to advance the knowledge base, while religion seeks a beginning to justify current and past behavior—then clings to it. All the answers sought by religion have been answered quite nicely. Only by faith—the absence of knowledge, can belief thrive or is considered. The greatest challenge to modern belief is the greatest of all time—to continue faith in the face of fact.

“The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask”—Jim Morrison

Your own thoughts often come out of the blue, even if our core is in disagreement with those thoughts. This Psychology Today article offers more to ponder. Who you allow to have voice in your life certainly influences you’re decisions, but also much of religion and racism is based on evolutionary defenses.

Whether an idea is yours or not, one big idea can change the course of humanity. Waiting for god to return to fix our problems is a free pass from acting responsibly now.

Aluna—The Conscious Earth…And Us

The Kogi of Columbia eluded the spaniard invasion, hid in the mountains and for over 500 years have been caretakers of the earth. They understand the Earth to be a living being and see humanity as its “children.” They say that our actions of exploitation, devastation, and plundering resources is weakening “The Great Mother” and leading to our destruction.

The film, Aluna, takes us into the world of the Kogi. At the heart of the tribe’s belief system is “Aluna”—a kind of cosmic consciousness that is the source of all life and intelligence and the mind inside nature too. “Aluna is something that is thinking and has self-knowledge. It’s self-aware and alive. All indigenous people believe this, historically. It’s absolutely universal.”(1)

Coincidence? Consciousness and our self awareness is in the mind of all nature. Self awareness, according to the Kogi is inherited from the self awareness of the earth. The deep, human neural processing ability seems to be the one, over-evolved specimen willing to kill the very thing that insures its ability to thrive, all along with the awareness that we are doing it.

The modern disconnect with nature is problematic. Can we at least try to feel what the Kogi see as plain as the nose on our faces? With all the attempted research on consciousness, maybe we should be looking backward instead of forward.